The Las Vegas-based MAC Agency made music news last month when it signed DJ Pee .Wee—aka Grammy-winning artist Anderson .Paak—to its roster of DJs, producers and musicians. It wasn’t a surprising addition, considering the amount of time .Paak has spent in Las Vegas recently, headlining with Bruno Mars as Silk Sonic at Park MGM’s Dolby Live theater, making the rounds at Strip shows and restaurants, and spinning at On the Record and other Vegas clubs.
The deal also seems logical given the team behind the agency, starting with founder and CEO Eddie McDonald, a DJ, all-around music lover and one of the major behind-the-scenes players in Las Vegas nightlife for more than 20 years.
The MAC Agency is a boutique entertainment operation founded in 2016 with the goal of collaborating with “artists of substance,” McDonald explains, for curated local and national bookings and innovative events. The expansive current roster reads like a who’s who, from familiar local DJ stars like Crykit, G-Squared, Yo Yolie, Mighty Mi, Neva and SpydaT.E.K, to other notables like singer Nieve Malandra and legendary hip-hop producer Easy Mo Bee.
“When I moved back to Vegas [in 2014], I realized I will always love DJing, it’s part of me, but I was feeling disconnected from the music that needs to be played here,” McDonald says. That’s when he took a trusted friend’s advice to start his own company, and soon the agency was off and running, booking DJs at Venetian’s stylish lounge the Dorsey.
The East Coaster originally landed on the Strip in 2002 to help open the original Light Nightclub at Bellagio. What was supposed to be a weekend gig turned into two nights a week at Light and two nights a week at the Foundation Room at Mandalay Bay. McDonald spent a decade working with the influential Light Group and other venues and companies until Hakkasan Group hired him to return to New Jersey to anchor two new clubs in Atlantic City.
Those spots ran their course, and he found himself back in Las Vegas, shifting gears to book gigs for other artists and growing the agency. McDonald and his crew were instrumental in the opening of On the Record at Park MGM, the speakeasy-style club that has evolved sonically through the pandemic as the Strip’s home for throwback hip-hop, b-boy culture, R&B and all the accompanying vibes.
“We were on the phone [with MGM Resorts executives], asking, ‘What’s the vibe gonna be?’ We started talking old-school stuff, I looped DJ Skribble into it, and the next thing you know, we’re booking KRS-One and [playing] Black Sheep, Big Daddy Kane, Nice & Smooth,” McDonald says.
“There’s definitely a lot of proud moments [in Vegas] for me, but to see this place opening when I was in my 40s, the first place I’ve been involved with and seen in Vegas where you can look around and have 25-year-olds just as entertained as 45-year-olds, it’s definitely a special place.”
It’s also the place where DJ Pee .Wee famously hit the decks in the hidden Vinyl Parlor during the afterparty for one of the opening Silk Sonic shows, igniting .Paak’s itch to share his favorite music with the club crowd and get a different kind of party started.
“He winged it that first night; it was Wednesday, and I was pulling records off the wall for him to play,” McDonald says. “The next day I got a text from Anderson saying, ‘Thanks for letting me rock. Can I come back and do it again?’ It was like, say no more. He came in Saturday, Bruno was basically his hype man on the mic, and it was surreal. And it really caught fire.”
So has the MAC Agency. It hit the ground running in 2023 and has hired more personnel to boost operations so it can keep up with growing demand for its artists in Las Vegas and across the country. Next up, McDonald says, will be a MAC Wax record label, dropping fresh edits on vinyl and other merchandise.
“Our goal this year is really to get more attention for our headline talent, more opportunities for them,” he says.
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